


You Matter

by Wanna_be_goodr



Category: Derry Girls (TV)
Genre: (hopefully), Awkward Flirting, Awkwardness, Crushes, Erin being awkward, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, James being awkward, Jerin - Freeform, Some slight humour about the church I guess, Teenagers, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22753549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanna_be_goodr/pseuds/Wanna_be_goodr
Summary: James ditches Doctor Who, takes Erin to the prom, and some confessions happen (not necessarily of a Catholic nature)Rated Teen and Up because I have sworn quite a lot here - and I can't even blame it on Michelle!
Relationships: James Maguire/Erin Quinn
Comments: 5
Kudos: 87





	You Matter

**Author's Note:**

> My first Derry Girls fanfic, including some cringey uses of Derry-isms from the show. Sorry Northern Ireland!
> 
> PLease enjoy, and if ya do some feedback would be... (sorry) cracker!

James was adjusting his cracker scarf for his Doctor Who night when the phone rang. Aunt Deidre didn’t answer the call, and James wasn’t in any rush, so he forgot about The Rule (“James, no English answers the phone in case the caller gets violent!”) and picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Ach, James, it’s yourself! It’s Mary, love. I was wonderin if you could do our wee Erin a favour? You see that John Paul fella has stood her up, the poor wain, and I was just thinkin if perhaps you could…”

“I’ll take her to prom. As a friend, obviously, Mrs Quinn.”

Ma Mary grinned down the phone and thanked the wee lad profusely before returning to her daughter, sat in that torture-device of a dress.

James looked at himself in the mirror. Right. Okay. This is fine. You’re just helping a friend. Just offering an arm to hold, a shoulder to cry on. You’d do it for any one of the girls.

Except that James knew he wouldn’t. Clare had been devastated when she realised she’d have to find someone else to go to prom with. She’d panicked, and James had felt guilty, but he had prioritised this one, lone reminder of a happier time in his life over Jenny Joyce’s stupid prom. Over Clare.

And yet, here he was, prioritising the smile he hoped to see on Erin’s face over his one, lone reminder of a happier time in his life.

Of course, he only wanted to see her smile because she was upset, and he cared about her as a friend should, the same way he cared about all of the girls. He had no reason to want to see Erin’s smile more than Orla’s, or hear Erin’s laugh more than Michelle’s. It wasn’t as if he had a favourite Derry girl.

Except… except he sort of… did? Because his favourite Derry girl’s smile was brighter than the others’, her laugh more musical, more pure, more *her* than the others’. She looked better in short skirts, her hair was more golden, her lashes were longer, her cheeks rosier, her skin softer looking, her voice more calming…

And without realising his feet had taken him there, he was suddenly standing at his favourite Derry girl’s front door. He imagined her inside, sat at the kitchen table, make-up and hair accessories and beauty tools James didn’t quite understand surrounding her. Her golden-haired head held high, despite her wanting to run away from her family’s sympathetic looks and lock herself in her room for a year. As James imagined her, alone and hurting, a swell of anger rose from his stomach. That bastard John Paul didn’t deserve Erin. She was brilliant, funny, smart, ridiculous, messy, headstrong, loud, enthusiastic… perfect. And that dicko had stood her up! It was a good thing James didn’t know exactly where he lived, otherwise he’d definitely have set Michelle on that good-for-nothing twat.

James took a deep breath and reached for the doorbell as he saw a turquoise figure moving in the Quinns’ hall. He’d seen her in that dress, knew how uncomfortable it was, knew how unlike herself she felt in it. It made him angry again, angry at John Paul and everyone else who’d ever made Erin feel like she needed to change to be attractive. Just as he was starting to daydream about exactly how Michelle would hurt John Paul, Erin opened the door.

But Christ she looked lovely, even in that horrendous dress. Her eyes were subtly outlined with make-up, her lips painted a beautiful red colour. Her hair was styled like a ‘50s movie star and James fell even harder than he already had. He saw tear tracks though, and her face asked a thousand questions. With what he knew was a dopey smile, James told her how Ma Mary had called him. She beamed, and his heart had a completely normal platonic reaction to that smile. Completely normal. When Erin asked for a minute and rushed upstairs, James’ eyes followed her and his grin grew so much that had she turned around and looked at him then, she’d have known how he felt about her from one glance.

And then, as if she was trying to kill him, Erin re-appeared, wearing her Easter dress and looking so much more *Erin* that James was grateful to John Paul and his crappy ways for giving James the opportunity to see his favourite Derry girl like this. James’ breath caught in his throat, but he didn’t care. Erin looked gorgeous. Fuck.

Okay so he may have a tiny wee crush on her. Only a wee one though.

They walked arm in arm through the streets of Derry, making the kind of comfortable conversation only friends who have seen each other at their absolute worst can make. They laughed about his first day at Our Lady Immaculate, when James almost gave himself a hernia and eventually had to piss in a wastepaper basket three feet away from a dead nun. They laughed about the failings of the Friends Across the Barricade abseiling trip. They passed the time with banter laced with friendly, platonic affection.

As they came to the doors of Our Lady Immaculate College, Erin stopped walking. James turned around to her and saw a look he’d never truly seen on her face before. He’d caught glimpses of it when her plans had failed, when they’d both been plastered on the way home from parties, when Ma Mary had been a bit too fierce with the harsh words, but she’d always turned away before he saw her properly. Now she faced him straight on, trying to meet his eyes.

“I just wanted to… To thank you, James. For comin here with me instead of that creep con- Doctor Who night thing. I… well, I just… I- thank you,” She trailed off quietly.

She was making herself vulnerable to him. The wee English fella. And he grinned from ear to ear, then looked away bashfully. 

“Well, it’s no problem, really. I’m just sorry I’m not John Paul,” he raised his hand to the back of his neck and looked at his feet.

“Don’t be. I’m not.”

His head snapped back up to look at Erin, his eyes wide and glittering in the glow of the streetlights. Erin continued, discovering that she actually had a lot of balls – more than John Paul, that was for sure. “I’m not sorry it was you on the other side of that door, James. It meant I could wear this dress instead of that monstrosity I thought John bloody Paul might fancy me in. It meant I got to come to Jenny Joyce’s stupid prom and see my friends. Thank you for giving up your evening – it means a lot…” She’d taken a step closer at that, and now seemed to be intrigued by the tarmac of the pavement beneath her feet.

“I told you, the Doctor Who night isn’t important,” James took a deep breath. Should he go on? Should he say something that skirted the line between platonic reassurance and confessing feelings? Not that he had many feelings to confess, of course. Just a wee crush. Looking at Erin in her comfy dress, with strands of her hair delicately falling out of the updo and catching the light, James took a chance. “The Doctor Who night doesn’t matter, Erin. You do.”

Shit. Fuck. He told her! Shit! That was it, now she knew, now she knew how madly obsessed with her he was, she was going to scream or shout, or call him a pervy dickwad or -or – Hang on, was she blushing?

There was colour in her cheeks, colour that hadn’t been there when they were walking. It was a lovely peachy pink tone, and James was a big fan – it suited her. He wanted to say as much, but was terrified that he’d already taken it too far. He worried that he’d fucked his and Erin’s friendship by fancying her, by letting on. He hadn’t wanted to destroy any trust or make her uncomfortable. And yet – was that a smile playing on the edge of her lips?

“Do you- d’you really think so?” She asked, trying to win a staring competition with the ground.

And just like that, hope blossomed in James’ chest. Maybe that was a smile, maybe that was her blushing, maybe she wanted him to carry on, to tell her more about how bloody lovely he found her. That tiny little voice coming from his loud, pushy Derry girl betrayed insecurity, disbelief. It hit James that while it may have been crystal clear to him how attractive and witty and downright wonderful Erin was, she had no idea. She romanticised herself in her head, in her daydreams, in her diary. But underneath that she was just a wee schoolgirl with hopeless crushes on idiot boys and absolutely no reason to believe she’d ever have a real chance with anyone. This sudden realisation broke James’ heart, and pushed him to say his next words.

“Of course I do, Erin. Of course I think - I know - you matter. You’re great. Cracker, actually,” she snorted, but he carried on, “you’re worth so much more than that – that knobhead John Paul. You deserve someone who’ll turn up on time for you, who’ll respect you. Someone who’ll admire you, Erin Quinn,” it seems to James that it takes an age for his next words to come tumbling out of his mouth. 

“I admire you.”

And just like that, Erin loses the staring competition with the pavement. Just like that, she sees James for who she got a glimpse of when he thought she wasn’t looking as she rushed upstairs to change her dress. She sees him as someone who just might quite fancy her, actually. Fuck. But God, she fancies him too, she has done for a while now – Katya launching herself at him, him calling her his GirLFriENd, the pit in her stomach she felt as James sat with Clare at the talent show, all made her realise. She hadn’t admitted it before, hadn’t wanted to – for the love of Big M, he was English! He was Michelle’s wee English cousin, and she was a Derry girl! But she fancied the pants off him, and here he was, standing in front of her in the light of the moon and stars (and streetlights), and he looked a proper ride in that tux, so he did. And, to top it all, he’d just told her, adorably, that he admired her.

He was looking at her through his eyelashes, which were casting shadows on his angular cheekbones. He looked nervous and excited all at once. She took a step forward, and he did the same. They stood a few inches apart, looking at each other, taking each other in. James looked at her lips, then quickly looked away, not wanting to pressure her or rush her. Erin, however, wanted to snog the living daylights out of her best friend’s cousin, and didn’t care at that moment that she could have read this all wrong, that she usually made a tit of herself. Tonight, with James, Erin was bold.

She moved forward and looked at James’ mouth. Did he use Chapstick? His lips looked so soft, so inviting. He swallowed hard, green eyes trained on Erin’s face. He leant in. She closed her eyes. He moved forward a bit more, and let his own flutter shut. Then they were kissing. 

Holy fuck.

James was on top of the world. His hands came out of his pockets to rest respectfully on her waist, hers coming up to clasp his shoulders tightly. He gently nibbled her bottom lip, and the noise that she made made him forget his own name. All he knew was he was a lucky, lucky bastard, and John Paul wasn’t actually that much of a knobhead anymore.

Their kissing skills were, unbeknownst to them, sub-par. But to James Maguire and Erin Quinn, this kiss was perfect.

It was so perfect in fact, that they forgot about how ragin Michelle would be when she found out about the fact that her best mate and her wee English dicko of a cousin had snogged. And planned to do it again. 

Repeatedly.


End file.
